26th November, 2020
Sponsor Licence holders: Changes to Sponsor Management System (SMS)
The Home Office will be making essential changes by updating the Sponsor Management System (SMS) between 19:00 on Friday 27 November and 09:00 on Tuesday 01 December 2020.
The licence holders will not be able to access their SMS accounts during this period and will be able to view the changes on the SMS from 01 December 2020.
What does this mean for existing Sponsor Licence holders?
- If your licence is due to expire between 27 November and 02 December 2020, you should submit your application to renew the licence before 19:00 on Friday 27 November 2020. Your licence will be temporarily extended for 7 days if you fail to submit the application before the deadline. You must then submit your application for renewal during the temporary period or the licence will lapse.
- If you currently hold a Tier 2 General and/or Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) licence, you will retain your current licence expiry date and your licence will automatically updated in the Skilled Worker and/or Intra-Company routes.
- All saved but incomplete applications to add routes to an existing licence will be deleted and the process will have to be restarted when access is granted on 01 December 2020. We recommend that you complete the application before maintenance work commences.
- Any existing Tier 2 General and/or ICT Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) with a status of ‘ready to go’ must be assigned before 19:00 on Friday 27 November 2020, or they will be reverted back to the status of ‘work in progress’ and cannot be assigned. Tier 2 General and/or ICT CoS with the status ‘assigned’ or ‘used’ will not be affected.
- Your annual allocation of Tier 2 General and/or ICT will be automatically updated to the Skilled Worker and/or Intra-Company routes allocation.
- All pending requests-in-progress to increase or renew the annual allocation will be considered, and granted under the new routes, if appropriate.
- CoS categories will be updated on 01 December 2020 and any CoS assigned on and after this date will be in the new categories.
We recommend that you take all necessary action before the maintenance work commences. If you would like any advice on how this may impact you, please contact Ikram Malik.
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Ikram MalikBusiness Immigration Partner |
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